A Creed To Lie Beside
by Not Your Exception
Summary: Matt had four lessons and a creed to learn. “Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” Warnings: Character deaths, spoilers. Prompt: #012, Insanity


"**A Creed to Lie Beside"**

**Fandom: **Death Note  
**Characters: **Matt (Mello, L, Roger)  
**Prompt: **#012: Insanity  
**Word Count: **973  
**Rating: **T  
**Summary:** Matt had four lessons and a creed to learn.  
**Warnings:** Character deaths, spoilers.  
**Disclaimer: **I own not'ing. Don't want to. I wouldn't have as much fun.

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"_Justice is in one scale,  
__and self-preservation in the other."_

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)

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When he was eight, Matt had had the suspicion that every child at Wammy's was insane. They were prodigies, geniuses, incredible mistakes of nature, and (_undeniably_) insane.

They were freaks; their minds were different, better, worse. "Insane," the dictionary told him. "Adjective. Mentally ill."

A chemical imbalance, he had supposed. Something was messed up with the neurons and fluids in their brains, making their learning faster, their instincts stronger. It was unnatural. Freakish. Inhumane?

Rule number one of human nature (or; 'assumption number one of the sane') is self-preservation. _Do not die_. This instinct, this in-built _conviction_ forces people to conform. That's why Wammy's housed children for little over six years – imagine if ten, thirteen, sixteen year olds conformed to insanity?

They wouldn't survive, come reality. Come sanity.

Matt was meant to leave Wammy House on the eleventh of March, 2003. Just over a month after he'd turned twelve. He would be old enough to fit into a high school. He'd go someplace in America, probably. He'd been born there. He'd 'fit' right in with the normal, sane, not-freakish types.

Just, not a school with a uniform, he'd thought. He didn't like uniforms. Conformity, they demanded. For the good of the whole, they sang. Carry us, they pleaded. These are sane, self-preserving ideals.

The dictionary told him: "Conform. _Word Origin_ Latin, '_confirmare_', to strengthen."

He had laughed. Strengthen the group, weaken the insane. Conform, diffuse, regulate, _survive_.

Five years at Wammy House (learn insanity, learn L), then high school (learn sanity, learn self-preservation). That was his plan.

Sometime before high school (the third of January, 1999) Mello came to Wammy's. He met Matt. Mello was insane, in every context of the word. He had a gut feel you could stake your life upon. He was furious, and impulsive. Matt was swept up in it. Matt's plan meant nothing to Mello.

Together, they leapt straight over conforming, and _re_formed. That broke all the prized rules of Wammy. They loved that.

"Faith to L," the Wammy House creed preached. "Faith to Justice."

"Faith to Insanity," whispered the unheard final line.

Forever against conformation, the prodigies of Wammy took strength in individuality, in difference, in big-picture thinking and insane leaps of thought that were never, ever going to make sense.

Mello and Matt were a double act. 'Faith to L. Faith to Justice. Faith to Insanity'

Fur and leather, stripes and denim – they wore no uniform. They didn't conform. They _were_ the 'good of the whole'. And they carried each other. Faster and faster.

Roger never tried to make Matt leave in when he was thirteen, as he was supposed to.

Fifth of November, 2004, the L died. Mello left before his allocated departure, because Faith to Insanity was everything.

Faith to L – L was dead, killed by his Faith to Justice. Faith to Justice – what was Justice when Mello _had to win_? What was Justice when Matt _had to take him there_? Justice came second to Mello's fury.

Faith to Insanity.

To Matt, Mello was Insanity, and Faith to him forevermore. He waited until the third of March, 2005 before he left, however. (Why not? Exactly a year, he disobeyed the Wammy rule. Cheers, Mello.) He'd hesitated, because 'strengthen the group, weaken the insane' and Mello was insane, and Matt didn't want to make him weak.

He'd reformed, though. He wasn't a Wammy's kid anymore. And so he followed.

He never went to high school, after that. He went to America, though. He could've gone anywhere. He was fluent in more languages than could ever be helpful.

He didn't need high school to learn sanity. He got the idea on his own, fast enough. It was everything he knew it would be, and everything he couldn't imagine from the paint-free walls of Wammy House. Sanity swam around him, and he watched it, like the incredible puppet show it was. He watched people live inside their heads, and followed, but he didn't become it, because he had been waiting for the call since March, 2004, and that mattered more.

Not the call from L, because L was forever dead. Not Justice, because _L_ believed in Justice. L, Kira and they were two of a kind.

He had stopped counting the years, by the time Insanity broke down his door, all decked out in leather, fur, and a scar. Matt had grinned at the scar, even though he knew he'd get punched for it. It was a scar bestowed by Insanity, a scar of illogical thinking, and losing sight of self-preservation for the need of a greater ideal. Not L. Not Justice. The ideal of being the best, Matt correctly assumed. (He was a genius, after all.)

It had been a lot of years since Matt had felt this horribly (beautifully) insane. Sanity had nothing more for him.

It was another year, or so (why count?) when he learnt his mistake. He learnt what he was never going to understand (a lesson of sanity that could only ever be taught by the Insane) when Mello said to him, "We're kidnapping Takada. We're not coming back."

Matt had nodded and recited his unspoken reply, not thinking about it.

Mello had thought about it. Insanity had stopped, and _thought_. Thought about the things that you don't learn until you meet reality, and you lose Faith in L, and in Justice. He thought sane things.

But he wasn't sane.

And three weeks later, there was an empty grave at the foot of Wammy House, with his name carved into stone.

Beside Mello lay Matt. Dead because he never believed in L, he faked Sanity, and he didn't learn self-preservation because his faith lay with his body, beside Insanity.

**

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Author's Note:

It's all bullshit. Don't listen to me.

_12__th__ March, 2008_


End file.
